Small post 2 - Technology affecting society

In class, we have talked a lot about how technology affects society. Since technology is ever-changing, there will always be new terms that are developed to describe what new technologies do. Thus, society changes to embrace new technological terms as technology evolves. As I read the articles assigned for Tuesday, societal change to match technology really stuck out to me in the word choice of the authors. For example, the articles we had to read on family history technology ranged from 1991 to 2010. With each new article, new tech vocabulary words were used that hadn't been used in the previous articles: words like "wiki", "email", and "hyperlink". In one of the articles, it even included a glossary of terms, which explained all the computer mumbo-jumbo that had been used throughout the article. This process still continues today. As long as technology changes, society and terminology will have to change in order to keep up with it.

Current Even Post 2: Potential for drones to change America

We've all seen Star Wars, and we've all thought how cool it is to have anti-gravity levitation devices floating around. Now it appears that America has taken the first step towards something similar: According to this article, it is now legal to use drones on certain movie sets. This is a great example of a technology that could shape American culture as we know it. If allowed to press far enough, drones could do anything from our shopping to scooping dog poop. But now the question is, how much of a role do we want to let technology take in our lives? How will it affect human beings if we allow drones to take a huge roll? Fortunately, the technology is not yet cheap enough to be widely used, but it is something that is gaining popularity. We should begin to consider the potential affects of drones as we develop drone technology more.

Current Event: response to Larry Ellison stepping down as CEO of Oracle

According to CNN, Oracle founder Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO this past week. While I do not think it is very interesting that he stepped down, I think it is interesting how his success story is different than that of other successful people in the PC industry. In most success stories, there were two kinds of people: those who knew the technical side of a new computer technology, and those who knew the business side of it. However, Ellison is different because he possessed both the ability to develop a new technology and the ability to see how it was useful. According to the article, Ellison helped to create the first relational database, which shaped the way we work with computers today. Ellison is also noted to be a cunning businessman, known for his "cutthroat business strategy". These two accomplishments show that he is both a technical genius and a shrewd businessman. It is not surprising to me that someone who possesses both these traits has risen to be the fifth richest person in the world.

Stereotype fallacies about computer scientists

Over the past couple of days, we have talked a lot about the culture of the computer science world. The majority of us think of computer scientists as long bearded guys who have big glasses and sleep under their desks every night with old pizza boxes scattered about. However, what I have come to realize is that a computer scientist should be as respectable in his art as any other scientist is in theirs. They should be well-groomed, people-friendly, and professional. What would you think of a doctor who wore scrubby jeans to work? Not only would he not have very much business, his opinion wouldn't be respected by his peers, regardless of how proficient he was in his profession. As a future computer scientist, I know that I must do my part to become as professional as possible in communication, appearance, and working with people. Doing so will allow me to reach the greatest levels of potential that I can in the corporate world.